CLASSIC: Lawsonomy: How the Father of the Modern Airline Started His Own Religion

Summary

Ridiculous History: Classic Episode Summary
Episode: Lawsonomy: How the Father of the Modern Airline Started His Own Religion
Release Date: May 10, 2025

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Introduction to Alfred Lawson

In this classic episode of Ridiculous History, hosts Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown delve into the intriguing life of Alfred Lawson, a multifaceted individual who transitioned from pioneering aviation to founding his own religious movement, Lawsonomy.

Lawson's Early Career in Baseball

Ben opens the discussion by highlighting Lawson's initial foray into professional baseball.
Ben [00:00]: "Alfred Lawson starts out as sort of a middle of the road baseball player."

Noel elaborates that Lawson played for the Boston Bean Eaters, a team that eventually evolved into the Atlanta Braves. Despite not excelling in the sport, Lawson's brief baseball career spanned from 1888 to 1907.
Noel [07:36]: "He wasn't particularly great at baseball... he didn't like, you know, consorting with all these ruffians."

Shift to Aviation

Lawson's passion pivoted sharply towards aviation after recognizing the groundbreaking work of the Wright brothers.
Noel [09:18]: "He was inspired by the story of the Wright brothers and recognized the profound change that aviation would mean for human civilization."

An early adopter without technical expertise, Lawson launched two aviation magazines, Fly and Aircraft, aimed at novice enthusiasts interested in the burgeoning field of flight.

Founding Lawson Airlines

Leveraging his influence, Lawson convinced engineers and designers to build what is considered the first modern airliner.
Ben [12:31]: "He invented the airliner... In Milwaukee in 1920, he unveils the airliner to the world."

Lawson Airlines featured planes capable of seating 16 to 26 passengers, a significant advancement compared to existing models. In 1919, the airline successfully offered transcontinental flights from New York to San Francisco in 36 hours, securing lucrative government contracts and postal delivery opportunities.

The Lawson L4 Crash and Aftermath

Despite initial successes, Lawson's ambition led to the creation of the Lawson L4, a 100-seat airliner.
Noel [15:22]: "In 1921, he made one that was supposed to seat like 100, and it crashed and burned."

The L4's catastrophic failure resulted in the loss of investor confidence. Coupled with the 1920 recession, Lawson Airlines couldn't sustain its operations, leading to its eventual collapse.

Transition to Direct Credit and Lawsonomy

Undeterred by his setbacks, Lawson shifted his focus to economic theory, developing the concept of Direct Credit as a solution to the Great Depression.
Ben [27:24]: "Abolition of interest... remove control of money from private banking systems... put it in the hands of the government."

Direct Credit advocated for abolishing interest, centralizing economic control, and replacing traditional money with a system based on the value of goods and services.

Economic Theories and Direct Credit Society

Lawson published his ideas in the book Direct Credits for Everybody, which served as a manifesto blending economics with his unique interpretations of physics.
Noel [27:24]: "Direct Credit for Everybody... incorporates his particular flavor and understanding of physics."

The Direct Credit Society attracted thousands during the Great Depression, positioning Lawson as a leading thinker in alternative economic systems.

Evolution into Philosophy and Religion

Lawson's theories expanded beyond economics into a broader philosophy he termed Lawsonomy.
Ben [30:58]: "Lawsonomy is the knowledge of life and everything pertaining thereto... Facts, not fancies, truth, not falsity."

He introduced concepts such as suction and pressure as fundamental forces, rejecting traditional scientific notions of energy. Lawsonomy intertwined his economic theories with his own version of physics, creating a complex and often bewildering belief system.

University of Lawsonomy

To further propagate his ideas, Lawson established the University of Lawsonomy in Des Moines, transforming it into a center for his teachings.
Noel [38:27]: "He buys this university and wants it to become a center of learning, the University of Lawsonomy."

The university enforced strict adherence to Lawson's writings, requiring students to memorize his works verbatim for decades to earn the degree of Knowledgean—a role predominantly held by Lawson himself.

Decline and Legacy

As the Great Depression waned, interest in Direct Credit diminished, leading to a decline in Lawsonomy's following.
Ben [54:08]: "The Direct Credit Movement was much more successful than the Lawsonian movement."

Lawson's endeavors faced legal challenges, including tax issues, leading to the sale of the university campus and the eventual decline of the movement. Nonetheless, remnants of Lawsonomy persisted into the 21st century, with a small group maintaining the legacy until recent property acquisitions by companies like Foxconn.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Ben and Noel reflect on Lawson's transformation from a pioneering aviator to the founder of a quasi-religious movement, drawing parallels to modern-day philosophical entrepreneurs like Terrence Howard.
Noel [58:08]: "To try to restrict space itself is like trying to define Lawson's life in a few pages."

They acknowledge the complexity and eccentricity of Lawson's beliefs, highlighting the challenges in understanding and sustaining such unconventional philosophies.

Notable Quotes

• Noel [07:36]: "He wasn't particularly great at baseball... he didn't like, you know, consorting with all these ruffians."
• Ben [12:31]: "He invented the airliner... In Milwaukee in 1920, he unveils the airliner to the world."
• Noel [27:24]: "Direct Credit for Everybody... incorporates his particular flavor and understanding of physics."
• Ben [30:58]: "Lawsonomy is the knowledge of life and everything pertaining thereto... Facts, not fancies, truth, not falsity."

Final Remarks

The hosts wrap up by encouraging listeners to explore more about Alfred Lawson through documentaries like Man Life, the Last of the Lawsonians and various online resources. They also invite engagement from listeners who might have insights or further understanding of Lawson's intricate theories.

Noel [57:46]: "It's a bit hard to swallow, but I can't recommend highly enough this documentary."

Ben [58:32]: "And if someone makes sense of this, we'd love to hear from you."

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Note: For those interested in exploring Alfred Lawson's life and theories further, the podcast recommends the documentary Man Life, the Last of the Lawsonians and various online PDFs available through the Ridiculous Historians community page.

Transcript

[Ben]

We return fellow ridiculous historians with a classic episode for this week. And this is one for all the baseball fans in the crowd looking at our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Noel, what do we know about Alfred Lawson?

[Noel]

Well, he was the father of the modern airline of modern flight as we know it, at least in a commercial sense. While he had nothing to do with the invention of it, he was early to the game in terms of his awareness of the Wright brothers, which gave him one of those quintessential light bulb over the head animation moments.

[Ben]

Yeah, and the reason we're, we're saying this is good for the baseball heads in the not body shaming, but fans of baseball in, in the audience is that Alfred Lawson starts out as sort of a middle of the road baseball player. And as you said, he gets this light bulb moment when he realizes that aviation may be the next big thing. And so he leads the charge to popularize this in the zeitgeist of the day. We're talking publishing trade magazines, getting ads out to the public, even designing the first modern airline.

[Noel]

Oh, but he did more than that, Ben. He was a bit of a renaissance man and pivoted to economic theory after revolutionizing. Yes, yes, after revolutionizing the world of travel and eventually took those theories and fashion them into something of a religion.

[Ben]

Yes, his own religion. This is the story of Lawsonomy. Get it? Because his last name is Lawson.

[Noel]

Clever. You're listening to an Iheart podcast.

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[Noel]

Check.

[Ben]

And helmet. Done.

[Noel]

See you, dad.

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[Ben]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Oh, man, this is okay. This is going to be a weird one. And I think I have. I think I have an interesting way for us to begin today's show. Hi, everyone, I'm Ben.

[Noel]

Hey, Ben. And everyone, I'm Noel. And I cannot wait to hear what you've got up your sleeve.

[Ben]

Well, let's see. Let's see if this impresses you. Super producer Casey Pegram.

[Noel]

Can I just point out real quick that we're in a different studio today and we keep banging our knees on the. On the table.

[Ben]

Yeah. I don't know how other people do this. We are so spoiled because we. We endeavored to book a lot of our time in the newer studio. And this. I like it. It's smaller. It's got a cozy little closet. Like, little closet. It's got a cozy vibe because we have this paper lamp on the table. You know, it's a little ambiance.

[Noel]

Yeah. But it's the trade off of the ambiance to the knee banging. Not worth it. But, Ben, hit us with your fascinating intro.

[Ben]

Check this out. I don't know. Fascinating, but it's weird to me. So you remember Terrence Howard, the actor who has played a number of Comm Rolls, Empire, Hustle and Flow, so on? Yeah. He has invented a philosophy or science that he believes explains the universe and fundamentally changes the way that we understand reality.

[Noel]

Terrence Howard did this.

[Ben]

Yeah. He's called Terryology.

[Noel]

Wow. That. Okay, this is a true story. This is great.

[Ben]

Ben, I've got to send you this. So Terrence Howard, again, lauded actor, believes that he has created a secret system called Terryology inspired by his Realization in his mind that one times one equals two instead of one times one equaling one. And you can read explanations of this. He's had an interview with Rolling Stone wherein he talked about this and says that lately he's been spending up to 17 hours a day working on this system of logic, just, oddly enough, what he calls it. And he believes that his discovery, which is what he calls it, will change the way that mathematics is taught for generations to come. And that were Pythagoras around to see this discovery, he would lose his mind.

[Noel]

Yeah. He says this is the last century that our children will have to be taught that one times one is one. Finally, for the first time ever, you heard it. Terrence Howard has solved it. Man. Ben. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't a fan of the subject of today's episode, Mr. Alfred Lawson.

[Ben]

Yes. Oh, boy. That's what. So I was looking up other luminaries, right. And I was trying to find people who had insisted on creating their own understanding of the world or their own, I guess we'll call it philosophical entrepreneurship. I don't know. That's.

[Noel]

Will Smith's kids did it.

[Ben]

That's true. That is true, Noel. They did. Alfred Lawson perhaps is an inspiration to some of these people in the more modern age. He was born way back in 1869 on March 24, and he's a man of many interests. You know what I mean? Love him or hate him, he's definitely a Renaissance dude.

[Noel]

Oh, he did some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He started off as one of the first professional babies when that was very, very, very much in its early days. I believe he played for the Boston Bean Eaters.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Noel]

Did I make that up?

[Ben]

No, he's incorrect.

[Noel]

And I think that that actual team went on to become the Atlanta Braves in some form or fashion.

[Ben]

Yes, they did. You're absolutely right.

[Noel]

And by all accounts, Lawson wasn't particularly great at baseball, but somehow, maybe in those early days, you didn't have to be, because it was so new. Not quite sure how he. He inched his way into that world, but apparently it turned him off because there was too much tobacco, alcohol, and just, you know, womanizing. He was a little bit more of a measured kind of intellectual type, and he didn't like, you know, consorting with all these ruffians.

[Ben]

Yeah, it was immoral to him. His minor league career, I think, went from 1888 to around 1907, and he was playing in the minor leagues. He also played for the Pittsburgh Alleghenies, and he went on after that career to start his own baseball league.

[Noel]

It had a pretty, pretty clunky name that we learned from an article from our buddies at mental floss. 11 notes on Alfred W. Lawson, founder of the weirdest university ever. Which, mind you, we're gonna get to. But yeah, he founded this league called the Union Leagues of Profess Professional Base Space Ball Clubs of America. So at this point, baseball wasn't even a single word yet. It was a brave new world of this crazy sport.

[Ben]

Imagine a ball and also a bass.

[Noel]

Yeah, yeah. The combination of the two.

[Ben]

What should we call it?

[Noel]

He moved on pretty quickly after that. Did not work out. He then decided he wanted to be a part of what he saw as a pretty important technological movement, innovation, which was aviation.

[Ben]

It is true he was inspired. This comes from Mental Floss article, but also from a couple of excellent documentaries we saw. He was inspired by the story of the Wright brothers. He recognized, to his credit, he recognized the profound change that aviation would mean for human civilization at large, and he wanted to be part of it. More and more as we explore this guy's life, we'll see one phrase that I think applies to him directly and that is early adopter. He had no experience in publishing, had no experience in aviation. So he decided to publish a magazine about aviation.

[Noel]

Yeah. But it was all based on just like his gut instinct that this was going to be a big deal. And he even had notions of a future society where everyone lived on aircraft of some kind.

[Ben]

Right. As superior people, I feel like we have to hold on to that one.

[Noel]

We do. Let's get there, though.

[Ben]

We'll get there. We'll get there. We're gonna earn this one, folks. So Lawson starts an aviation magazine. He actually starts two. One is called Fly and one is called Aircraft. And when he starts, these very few people have actually flown. Like you could count them on one hand.

[Noel]

And these weren't meant to be like trade papers because there really was no industry to speak of at this point. It was more for, like, novice enthusiasts that might want to find out more about this new brave new world of flight. Right.

[Ben]

It was almost like science fiction or cutting edge tech magazine.

[Noel]

Sure, yeah, exactly. Like Wired, which made a really great article about this. Actually, Matt Simon of Wired called Fantastically Wrong. And I'm not gonna give you the whole subtitle cause it might spoil a little bit of where we're heading. But this is a story of innovation. This guy is very much an early adopter, like you said, but it all kind of goes off the rails. Pretty quickly. But before that happens, he does a little thing where he kind of invents basically the modern passenger plane.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. He invented the airliner, or to be more specific, the idea of it. He also did not have technical knowledge, so he thought, planes are amazing. What's the next step? Let's make them like buses for the sky. Let me hire some people who can build this in a way that will actually work. We should also say one thing this guy never suffered from was a lack of confidence. One of my favorite quotes from him comes from his own description of his. Of his birth. You saw that, right?

[Noel]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben]

Where he describes his birth in 1869 as, quote, the most momentous occurrence since the birth of mankind. And he is able to apply this confidence in a contagious way. People buy into his idea. He convinced these designers and these engineers to build this aircraft, and it actually works. Lo and behold, In Milwaukee in 1920, he unveils the airliner to the world. At this time, it's the largest non military plane in the entirety of the US and it seats about 16 to 26 people, depending on how you position the seats. And he launches Lawson Airlines.

[Noel]

Yeah, and there was a European company that successfully flew what you could kind of lump into this as an airliner, but I think it only held four, which to me just sounds more like a plane, like a small plane, you know, because I guess typically in those days a plane would hold two. So it was just you got. You had two more passengers. Not really a commercially, you know, lucrative proposition there.

[Ben]

Yeah. And for a time, Lawson Airlines was doing okay for a short time because they were bringing newer and more impressive innovations to this concept of commercial flight, which, folks, we cannot emphasize enough, we cannot exaggerate this enough. Commercial flight is a brand new idea. It's wild. It's like if somebody said, let's build pet shops on the moon, you know, so that moondogs and cats can have their supplies of toys. People really didn't know whether this would work. And Lawson, despite premiering this, what I think, Noel, you and I would both agree, is the first real airliner. Lawson becomes a cautionary tale in 1921.

[Noel]

Yeah. But just before that, in 1919, he did actually create an airliner that could seat 18 people, like we said, and had a system in place where he could successfully fly people from New York to San Francisco in, I believe, 36 hours.

[Ben]

He was also getting some lucrative contracts from the government. He was in the running, rather, he was the clear front runner to get some postal delivery contracts. So things are going well, as we said. But what happens in 1921?

[Noel]

Well, a problem that he had was instead of making more of the. I learned this from a documentary called Man Life, which is really, really great. I recommend. It's on Amazon. You can stream that. And it's about. It's about Lawson and his life and his legacy, but also, like, his, like, kind of lone follower that still, you know, in the.

[Ben]

Merle Hayden.

[Noel]

Merle Hayden. It's really, really kind of touching. Beautiful film.

[Ben]

Very sad.

[Noel]

Very sad, but also fascinating. And in it, the filmmaker makes a point that. Or one of the historians of the interview that he should have just built more of the one that seated 18 or, like, improved upon that. But instead, he kept wanting to go bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And eventually, yeah, in 1921, he made one that was. I supposed to seat like 100, and it crashed and burned. It was too unwieldy, and it just didn't work. And his backers were like, okay, we're done. Because they were already kind of like he had been taking too long to come out with this new aircraft, and they were losing confidence in him. And this was it. They were done.

[Ben]

It kept becoming more extravagant. So this was the Lawson L4. It was the last in his series of airliners that he had designed and built. It was completed in 1920, but when it flew, it crashed on its initial takeoff. And there's a similar risk whenever we're talking about transit technology. To put on my car stuff. Hat for a second. We're in a similar situation with autonomous vehicles right now. If there is a particularly tragic accident or event that occurs with an autonomous vehicle, it may well change the laws and we might not be able to have them. It's a very sensitive time in technological history. However, this guy is nothing if not determined and tenacious. So when he has these government contracts and despite the L4 crashing, he says he's going to keep carrying on. But unfortunately, in 1920, there was a recession, so he could not secure the cash reserves he needed for those U.S. contracts. And despite some of his commercial failures, he was widely considered to be one of the leading thinkers in the world of commercial aviation.

[Noel]

Yeah, he actually won the Winged America Award. And a magazine called scientific age in 1927 called him the world's leading passenger airplane builder. And this is coming from a Great article in OnMilwaukee.com we should also mention there's a strong Wisconsin connection here because his airline was actually headquartered in Milwaukee and he had designs to turn this city into like the Detroit of the aeronautics industry.

[Ben]

He wanted Milwaukee to be the aviation as Detroit once was for automobiles. And when the company collapses, Lawson soldiers on and he shifts his area of focus. At first, he starts promoting various health practices that he had always himself engaged in, such as vegetarianism and abstaining from tobacco and alcohol and so on. He also around this time claimed that he had discovered a surefire way for people to live to the age of 200, which, as far as we know, no one has ever done. And he starts rethinking a childhood experiment, or I guess a better way to say it is a childhood moment.

[Noel]

Yeah, an observation.

[Ben]

An observation perfect that stayed with him into his adulthood. And he contemplates it in increasingly intense ways. And the observation is this. As a child, he sees dust in the air, and he realizes that he can move the dust toward him by sucking in air and move it away from him by expelling air. Suction and pressure.

[Noel]

That's right, Ben. Suction and pressure. We're just going to leave that there for right now, but we will return, Mark my words.

[Ben]

Yes, but first we have to go back to the time period. You see, the recession in the US that occurred in 1920s was seen as a correction of market forces. Unfortunately, it turns out that this correction was either wrong or not enough to repair the situation. Because then we lead into 1929, a very bleak period in US history.

[Noel]

Yeah, the aforementioned Great Depression, the big one where so many Americans lost their jobs and couldn't afford to feed their families. And I think there was just a real need, a desperation to find answers and to find some kind of relief. And one source of that could be in, say, some kind of ideology that is pushed forward by a certain eccentric former aviation entrepreneur, award winning Noel.

[Ben]

Aviation entrepreneur. Yeah, he had his bona fides and he developed his own philosophy that originally started as an economic theory, just a straight economic theory. And what he told larger and larger crowds at various conferences, functions and rallies was that the Great Depression had a single discernible cause. This single discernible cause was the role of international financiers, banks, essentially privately owned banks. And he said that they were creating the economic crisis which had engulfed the US and the world by this point. And he said that these banks are the oppressors of the working force. They're the oppressors of the capital in a country's economy. And that there was, thank God, a way that he had come up with to fix it, to get rid of money and replace it with something else called Direct Credit.

[Noel]

Yeah, Direct Credit. And it's not entirely clear what he meant by that. Based on the things that I've read. I think it's sort of like the idea that money only has value based on the goods and services themselves. And the idea that you could get a loan directly from. From the government or with the government acting as like a steward of the loan, but that he wanted to abolish interest because in his mind, interest. We've talked about this before on other shows. The idea that it was very unpopular and considered userist, you know, like with the Cock Lane ghost story or whatever.

[Ben]

Right.

[Noel]

And, you know, there's a little truth to that. It's interesting, the idea of, you know, selling people money. It's a little bit of a weird one, but we've kind of come to accept it and it's like sort of the basis of our economy.

[Ben]

It's so weird how quickly things become normal.

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[Ben]

His idea to replace money in the economic system was summed up by the issuance of direct credit. Direct credit for everybody was one of the slogans that caught on with the Direct Credit Society. And Noel, you nailed it. I was looking for the primary differences, and there are three differences they could find between direct credit and the economic system we have today. The first, the most important, is the abolition of interest. And in other societies, interest in the way we understand it, isn't really a thing either, especially in some Muslim countries. So it's possible to have an alternative system. He was not speaking of religion at this point. Very important to say so. Those three differences abolished interests, remove control of money from private banking systems as he saw them, and put it in the hands of the government. This is after 1913 and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, by the way. So the third difference is more of a consequence of this, it centralizes control of the economy. Instead of this agglomeration of different banks with different interests on multiple levels, there's this single source, Uncle Sam, who's giving people interest free money that's just called direct credit for land ownership, for goods and services, for various things. To a lot of people during the Depression, this seems like a great idea.

[Noel]

Well, yeah, I mean thousands of people got behind it. And he actually kind of codified all this in a, I guess it was a book. You could call it a manifesto really. This is when you really start getting into these kind of more high minded philosophical ideas. Because the thing about Direct Credits for Everybody, which was the name of his book, is that it wasn't only about economics. It incorporated his particular flavor and understanding of physics and the way the universe works and those ideas of suction and pressure that we talked about earlier, these are key points to this direct credit idea. So not only is it some kind of, you know, treatise on how we can improve the economy and save us from, you know, the depression and make things more fair, built into that is kind of a philosophy of life that incorporates everything from personal health and wellness to money and equates the two.

[Ben]

Right, right, yeah. So the book Direct Credits for Everybody is sort of this utopian manifesto. I think manifesto is the correct word. And it describes not only direct credits, but it describes, as you said, his other concepts. And to Lawson these concepts are chained together. You can't understand his economic claim unless you understand his claims about physics. To Lawson, these are inseparable. And so imagine that you are a new member of the direct credit society. The depression is in full swing. You like this idea of getting the bankers out. To Lawson's defense, he was never, at least as far as we could find, he was never openly like an anti Semite.

[Noel]

No, no he wasn't. And there was another guy, Coughlin. Yeah, that's right. Who was much more of a big blustery speaker who kind of like had some of these same ideas because it was, you know, people were in revolt. I mean basically they'd been screwed over by the economy and people were mad as hell. Right. And so this was a popular movement or type of movement. The idea of getting rid of like the, the money lenders or the, the bankers, you know, they were like the same with like our recession that we had where all of a sudden, you know, you've got these like Bear Stearns and your, in your Goldman Sachs, you know, getting these golden parachutes and stuff and your average working, you know, folks who lost their houses are not happy about it at all. And yeah, we see that same pattern happening today that we saw back then. But this guy Charles Coughlan or Father Coughlin, he had some of these same ideas. He was a Roman Catholic priest from Canada. Actually I think he immigrated from Canada. But he used much more charged language that was much more on the anti Semitic side and equating the money lenders and the idea of people of the Jewish faith being the ones that directly caused the Depression.

[Ben]

Yeah. With what we would call now a lot of dog whistles, dog whistle stuff.

[Noel]

Whereas Lawson was much more like he didn't necessarily blame people, he blamed the system.

[Ben]

Right, he blamed the system and you couldn't understand his perspective. Again, this is something a lot of self appointed gurus do unless you read his understanding of other things. Let's get into his own version of physics which he called. This is why we talked about Terrence Howard at the beginning. He called his greater understanding Lawsonomy. Lawsonomy, like Lawson Onomy?

[Noel]

Yeah. And a lot of this was already in that first book. The direct credit for everyone. But he took it even further. And let's do a little reading from chapter one of Lawsonomy, volume one, just to give you a sense of where we're coming from here. Chapter one, Lawsonomy. This is what lawsonomy is and what it isn't. Lawsonomy is the knowledge of life and everything pertaining thereto. Lawsonomy is based upon life as it is and not upon a theory of what it ought to be. Theory as espoused by so called wise men or self styled scholars has no place in everything must be provable or reasonable or it is not Lawsonomy. Lawsonomy treats of things as they are, not as they are pretended to be. Facts, not fancies, truth, not falsity, knowledge, not notions is the foundation of lawsonomy. So to me I'm reading this as truth good, false, bad.

[Ben]

Because notice he doesn't ever actually explain that. Now that is the introduction. He goes on for quite some time about falsity versus truth. I believe you can by the way read lesson, I mean for free online.

[Noel]

If you [e-mail], it's the whole thing.

[Ben]

Every chapter and I'm glad to post it. He's a prolific author. He goes into his own version of physics. We mentioned suction and pressure, right. He believes that these are the two prime movers of the world, the universe, reality and everything. And that substances are things affected by suction pressure. This includes solids, liquids, gases. Mentality is also susceptible to suction pressure.

[Noel]

He's kind of got his own vernacular there. And he also. His big beef with science was that he doesn't believe in energy.

[Ben]

Yes, we have the quote. There is no greater load of misconception that science has ever had to shoulder than the unprovable theory that somewhere, somehow and in some shape there is exist a substance called energy that causes movement. No such thing exists anywhere. And science should expunge the fallacy without delay.

[Noel]

Yeah. And the funny thing is he refers to constantly in this. In this work about how he can't stand it when things are unprovable and yet continuously puts forth all of these absurdly unprovable and just flying in the face of much more provable scientific research. Yeah. So what are some of those, Ben, Some of his.

[Ben]

I guess we'd say lacinomic beliefs? Well, Lasonomy argues for a couple of different substances or states that do not exist in other forms of accepted science. There's something called lesether. Lesether. L E S E T H E.

[Noel]

R. Is that the stuff that's in space? No, that's the stuff that's on the Earth.

[Ben]

It's from the sun, but it's on Earth.

[Noel]

It's the stuff that the Earth is made of because it's less dense than ether, which is what space is made of.

[Ben]

Right. Less ether.

[Noel]

Less ether, yeah.

[Ben]

And then there's. Oh, there's something interesting here. His father had attempted for some time to build a perpetual motion machine.

[Noel]

That's right.

[Ben]

Right. And we mentioned.

[Noel]

Which is what?

[Ben]

A machine that is able to, once started, function without losing energy. It's able to perform work without losing energy and without taking in new energy.

[Noel]

Like a more extreme version of that thing you'd have on your desk with the balls where they hit each other and go click clack, click clack. Eventually those do run themselves out.

[Ben]

Something like that, that just goes on forever. A wheel that always spins. And many, many people have claimed to invent proportionality.

[Noel]

But that's a fallacy, though. Like, it's not. It's sort of like cold fusion or something. Right.

[Ben]

Right. Now, as far as we know, it is not possible. It violates the laws of known physics. But he has. Lawson has his own kind of perpetual motion machine. It's a state he calls. Help me out with pronouncing this exquavoir Pois equaver. Poise.

[Noel]

A quaverpoise. Yeah. And so he says there are four separate forces that have to equalize in order that a formation can balance and live. And these Are of them in order? Internal suction that draws in from within without. Internal pressure that pushes out from within. External suction that draws out from within, External pressure that pushes in from without. And exquavir poise is a level that's sought by substances of varying density that causes perpetual movement of matter. So that's like the stuff of the. The universe, right? It's like the. What causes the universe to be in harmony.

[Ben]

Yep, Suction and pressure here. Don't buy all those lies about energy, folks. And as people are reading this material, encountering Lawson's beliefs and hearing him speak, most of the large crowds are people in the upper midwest who want to hear about direct credit. When the great depression draws to a close later in the 30s, a lot of these people who are part of this big direct credit society move movement leave. They no longer need this alternative economic perspective. And they never really cared too much about his concepts of lossonomy and pressure and suction and lesser and all that stuff. So the crowds start to dwindle. And what he has left is a group of followers who are hook, line and sinker into the concepts, the philosophy that he has espoused beyond just the idea of direct credit. They want to study his concepts of the brain, of the universe, the idea of the male and female dichotomy of suction and pressure, the concept of menorgs. Oh, we didn't even talk about menorgs.

[Noel]

Too much, man. It's too much.

[Ben]

Menorgs, short for mental organizers. A portmanteau, if you will, and. Or a portmanteau, if you wish.

[Noel]

No, we do not wish anymore.

[Ben]

And mental organizers are these tiny, tiny creatures that are inside your brain, the cells of your mental system and help your body function in a focused way, help your cognition. And then there are the disorgs. They're the bad guys, the disorganizers. Microscopic vermin that attempt to destroy, for some reason the mental instruments constructed and operated by the men orgs. So his actual followers post direct credit society like this. They want to learn more, right?

[Noel]

Yeah, they do. So, yeah, he actually starts a college and he's able to purchase an abandoned university campus in Des Moines. Isn't that right?

[Ben]

Yeah, in Des Moines. And he.

[Noel]

I'm sorry, Des Moines. I said Des Moines. And I got roasted for that before. Let me make sure I say it right. Des Moines.

[Ben]

So, yeah, he buys this university and wants it to become a center of learning, the university of lasonomy. And his followers join him. But the rules of this university differ from those of other universities. Cough. Cough, hint, hint. Accredited. Cough. Cough, hint, hint. Universities.

[Noel]

Cough. Cough, hint, hint. Scientology.

[Ben]

Cough, cough.

[Noel]

You really. You need a cough pin. You need one of those cough buttons. You know, they have those in real, real radio setups.

[Ben]

Yeah, we used to have Peek behind the scenes here. Casey, you remember this too? We used to have a sound maker. There's one, but it doesn't have any batteries, does it?

[Noel]

No, I mean, a button that you push so that it mutes your mic so that you can call.

[Ben]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Noel]

That's pro stuff right there.

[Ben]

Our friends who work. Who work for npr, they have those.

[Noel]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ben]

I checked out their setup. I just wanted to use it just to feel power.

[Noel]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Oh, it does have batteries.

[Noel]

That's a good one.

[Ben]

That's a good one. And it's appropriate because Lawson thought he was dropping a bomb on the scientific consensus of the time. And students at the University of Lasonomy, although they were not getting an orthodox education, they were getting a rigorous one.

[Noel]

Yeah. And the thing, too, is, like, he outlawed. I don't know if that's the right word, but definitely forbade any books to be on campus that were not written by he himself. And, I mean, he kept writing these things, so that library probably wasn't massive, but, you know, there was definitely enough material to go around. And a big part of, like, testing in this university system was just rote memorization of Lawson's own, which is terrible.

[Ben]

You would have these different exams, and you had to recite, as you said, Noel, you had to recite from the books verbatim. And in Man Life with Merle Hayden, you can see that he actually experienced this because he is verbatim quoting from these different books. And they had to do this for a cartoonishly long amount of time. After about 10 to, what, 20 years of memorization, you would have an interim exam, and then after 30 years, you have a comprehensive exam. And if you passed, if you memorized enough of this guy's work, you would receive the degree of knowledgean.

[Noel]

Yeah, I'm gonna say knowledge Ian.

[Ben]

Knowledge Ian sounds classier.

[Noel]

Yeah. But I think until he passed away, no one held that distinction except Lawson himself. Yeah.

[Ben]

Which is a little culty, obviously.

[Noel]

Oh, and not to mention that this was also a communal living situation on a kind of a compound type situation. So, you know, it was. It definitely had that culty vibe to it.

[Ben]

The people of Des Moines were getting creeped out, for sure. And the big catch here is that only knowledgeans could bestow the degree of knowledge into another person. So if Lawson's the only one who has this ability and he passes away or something, then there are technically no more people with this degree. But the university bends the rules a little bit to get some people appointed or to have acquired this degree.

[Emily Tish Sussman]

Introducing Instagram Teen accounts. A new way to keep your teen safer as they grow. Like making sure they always have their seatbelt on.

[Noel]

Alright, sweetie pie, buckle up. Good job.

[Emily Tish Sussman]

Or ring the bell on their bike.

[Noel]

Okay, kid, give it a try.

[Ben]

Nice.

[Emily Tish Sussman]

Or remember their elbow pads.

[Noel]

Knees too. Okay. Yep. There you go.

[Emily Tish Sussman]

New Instagram teen accounts. Automatic protections for who can contact your teenager and the content they can see.

[Alex Williams]

This podcast is supported by Talkspace.

[Yves Jeffcoats]

When my husband came home from his military deployment, readjusting was hard for all of us. Thankfully, I found Talkspace.

[Alex Williams]

Talkspace provides professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatric providers online. Military members, veterans and their dependents ages 13 and older can get fast access to providers, all from the privacy of their computers or smartphones.

[Yves Jeffcoats]

I just answered a few questions online and Talkspace matched me with a therapist. We meet when it's convenient for me and I can message her anytime. It was so easy to set up and they accept. Tricare. Therapy was going so well, my husband and I started seeing a couple's therapist through Talkspace too.

[Alex Williams]

Talkspace works with most major insurers, including Tricare. Match with a licensed therapist [e-mail] military go to talkspace.com military to get started today. That's talkspace.com military.

[Max Williams]

Have you ever wished for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you felt stuck in a job or a place or a relationship? Join me, Emily Tish Sussman over on she Pivots, where I explore the inspiring pivots of women. Dig deeper into the personal reasons behind them and leave you with the inspiration you need to make your next pivot. In honor of Mother's Day, we have some very special guests. I'm Elaine Welteroth.

[Noel]

And I'm Caitlin Murray.

[Max Williams]

Both women pivoted out of their careers after having their kids, proving that motherhood is just another chapter in our journey, not the end. It's kind of like, will you have more babies? Yes. Will I always be me? Yeah. And will I continue growing? Yes.

[Noel]

Because I was really in the trenches and I knew my worth and my.

[Ben]

Value as a mom.

[Max Williams]

Come on over to hear their full stories. You can listen to she pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

Explore the winding halls of historical True Crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarki, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, known as the wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Hear the story of the gentleman robber, the romantic darling of the ladies, and a tale about a wager over a sack of potatoes. But you'll have to tune in to learn who won that one. Some highwaymen were well mannered or faked it. People were concerned about the romanticism of robbers, but most were just thugs. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Call them robbers or bandits. Some are legendary figures. Listen to stories about historical crimes on Criminalia now, plus the cocktails and mocktails inspired by each. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben]

At this time. This thing that started as an economic theory and later became a kind of philosophy is getting closer and closer to something that we might call like mysticism or spirituality, but it's also garnering attention from the federal government.

[Noel]

That's right, because it had been around for about 10 years before there were some issues. And the Senate Small Business Committee caught wind of the fact that they had bought these machine tools from like, war surplus and they actually resold them, or at least a large number of them, and made a decent amount of money doing that. And this is coming from that Wired article that we talked about earlier. And he appeared before this committee and tried to explain to them what lawsonomy was and the fact, the fact that it was based on physics. And then they needed the machine to help, you know, ply their, their craft or whatever or like, you know, follow their religion or their philosophy. And he was very upset when they kind of, you know, didn't understand what he was getting at. And Lawson commented that this whole thing was, quote, the damnedest thing I've ever heard of in all my life. And then one of the senators said, quote, I don't know whether we're talking about the same thing, but I'm inclined to agree with you.

[Ben]

Yeah, they seemed mutually befuddled and irritated at their inability to communicate. And there was a great Times article about it called zigzag and swirl, which is another principle to which Lawson adheres. And I'm sure he tried to explain that to the senators.

[Noel]

Yeah, just talking about some zigzag and.

[Ben]

Swirl and I don't know, that's a very lighthearted moment because I love the idea of both of these guys ardently trying to explain this stuff. And investigations continue, but for the time being, the University of Lasonomy soldiers on. After people graduate the university, their story or their journey with lasonomy doesn't end. They are offered option for postgraduate work. It's called Lasonian religion, and it is made to provide students with the highest quote, grade of consciousness. Remember when we talked about the people who would be different and superior to us landlubbers and they would live in the sky? This is the way to become that person, according to Lawson.

[Noel]

Yeah. And you know, we shouldn't forget too, that this was all happening while Lawson was still alive during kind of the rise of Nazism. And Lawson spoke out against it pretty regularly, but because of the kind of militaristic esque qualities of his organization, much like the kind of things we see with like the Sea Org in Scientology. Right. It people. It was not a good look. People were kind of like a little bit alienated by them, you know, and it was just kind of like a little bit weirded people out. Right.

[Ben]

Or they felt maybe it was somewhat hypocritical because these people at the time also would have been familiar with Lawson's earlier work. The Direct Credit Society was a very populist movement, you know, and they did have uniforms and dress codes, and the university was not so different. Also, Lawson was seen as somewhat of a. I don't want to say a Tony Stark figure, but he was an aviation expert. We didn't even talk about the circulation numbers of his paper. The benefactor under his time with the Direct Credit Society, people were aware of who this guy is and they saw how his positions evolved would be the nice way to say it changed would be another way to say it over time. They saw how they evolved and changed over time. Increasingly, his beliefs were becoming difficult to parse or obtuse, such that in the modern day, now Casey and Noel and I are not psychologists or therapists, but in the modern day, the kind of language he's using seems to be increasingly what we would call like word salad or disassociative.

[Noel]

Yep.

[Ben]

And there's a marked acceleration in this tendency as he ages. There are hints of this all along in his concepts with the Direct Credit Society and the layerlessonomy. But as he goes into out and out religion, as it goes from an economic theory to a philosophy to a religion, all the stops are gone. He's just saying insane stuff.

[Noel]

Yeah. Like what? What do we Got. Should we laundry list a few?

[Ben]

We can laundry list a few. Yeah. Yeah. You want to round robbing it?

[Noel]

Let's do it.

[Ben]

Okay. God wanted a supervising agent to manage the earth and all that it contains therein. And so he directed the men orgs, remember them, to design and build a superconscious being upon humane principles that would be capable of execut executing such orders and performing such duties as he would from time to time prescribe. It was a very crude thing that the men orgs first produced, which was designated as man. But they continued to improve him with the view of constantly increasing his intelligence and enlarging his consciousness until eventually he will become acceptable in the sight of God.

[Noel]

I like how I even heard you get bored with reading that, right? It's just like, what? What?

[Ben]

Well, I. I tone it down there toward the end because I feel like that's how a lot of people took it when they were reading something that ostensibly was going to be about physics or science or economic theory.

[Noel]

That's the thing. Like, all of his stuff is this weird, garbled mishmash of different ideas with no real substance there and nothing that's. It's all just a kind of agglomeration of, like, pseudo scientific ideas and kind of like bluster. And. Hey, if there's any Lawsonians out there that are offended by this, I'm more than happy to hear your side of the. You know. But I don't know know that there are any that remain because that film we talked about, Man Life, which, by the way, was the name of a magazine that. That Lawson published.

[Ben]

Not Man's Life.

[Noel]

Man Life Differently. One word. The guy that was the subject of that film is like 93 years old during the making of the film, and he kind of like, sticks around as an archivist, and he goes to this, like, air shows in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he tries to recruit young people into the Bosonian faith with very little success, it seems like. But his story is really beautiful. And he's, you know, he. He does live to be, you know, close to a hundred. And he follows all of the tenets of. And he eats raw food and, you know, he's got, like. He really, you know, lives his life by this code, which is really interesting to see, but there's a little bit more of the story. Lawson's legal troubles do not end at the whole affair with the machines or whatever. He actually. They get their nonprofit status revoked, and I think he owes in the neighborhood of a decade's worth of back taxes. Cause it was retroactive. Right, Right. So that pretty much bankrupted the organization. They had to sell off the university campus. They had. And they moved to another kind of farm type campus in. Where was it, Ben? It was somewhere in Minnesota.

[Ben]

In Racine County. Right.

[Noel]

Racine county, which is on Interstate 94. Very, very well traveled stretch of interstate between like Chicago and Milwaukee. Milwaukee.

[Ben]

You can read, you can read a cool article about it on milwaukee.com which is where we. By Greg Hoffman, which is where we found the description of the university after it moved.

[Noel]

And one of the features of one of those buildings was a big gray barn that says Study natural Law on the outside of it. And I believe the campus is still there today. There's a video on this Wired article where a guy just kind of wanders around and it looks like everything's locked. And I think it's owned by a trust that still is tied to the idea of Lawsonians. But yeah, and he himself, Lawson passed away two years after they got this new campus and after he kind of was shamed for being a bit of a tax fraud. And after he passed, the numbers just dwindled. They were never that massive to begin with. The Direct Credit Movement was much more successful than the Lawsonian movement.

[Ben]

Absolutely.

[Noel]

Because of its tie to the Great Depression. And then it sort of dwindled from thousands of members to maybe just a couple hundred and then eventually, eventually to Merle.

[Ben]

Now there are some other people involved. We'll get to them in just a second. But yes, it is true. Alfred Lawson died on November 29, 1954. Meaning that for one reason or another, he did die before he was 200 years old. And you're right that it did quickly diminish the following. That was already much smaller than Direct Credit. However, there are reports of one last lacunamic institution out in Kansas. Did you read about this?

[Noel]

No, I did not.

[Ben]

So in the Journal Times there is a report from 2001 of a church of Lasonomy. And this church still remains there in Kansas in Mount Pleasant. The officiator and one of the Lawsonians who still live in the area say that they find this personally meaningful. It has five buildings, including a church, a farmhouse and a dormitory. But only the two story dormitory is used today. Only one guy lives on campus. He's the caretaker. His name is Gary Turner. All these people are pretty elderly at this point and. And they have a dilapidated headquarters with tons of books and collections of literature. And one of the big things is that people, the remaining Lawsonians want younger people to join the movement of religion. But just like Merle Hayden, they are not reaching many people. They're not convincing anyone. So if this religion dies, and I tried to find more about this, if this religion does die, then unless some company buys the property, it is going to be the property of Kansas. The very last update I found was also by the Journal Times. Ricardo Torres writes that Foxconn just bought an unusual piece of Wisconsin history. So as far as we could see, the company Foxconn Technology Group Group, bought the land that Mount Pleasant owned for over $900,000. So these people may be aging, the group may be aging, but financially they're not hurting anymore.

[Noel]

Interesting. Yeah, I didn't hear about that. That's cool.

[Ben]

So we don't know what happens. The story continues.

[Noel]

Maybe this is a weird one, man. And this is, this is a tough one to get through. And there's a lot of stuff we've had to leave out. But I can't recommend highly enough this documentary. It's called Man Life, the Last of the Lessonians.

[Ben]

You can also find some cool audio stuff on YouTube about this. But again, I'll post this on our page. Ridiculous Historians. You can read these books, a lot of them in full online as far as I could find. Most of them are out of print in a physical edition, so it might be tougher to get there. But you can read PDFs and I don't know, I encourage check it out and if you, if you have an understanding of what exactly they're talking about, especially when it gets to physics and the nature of interaction of elements and substances, feel free to write us an email and break it down because I'm going to be honest, I read it. I don't get it. I don't quite understand.

[Noel]

No, no, it's a tough one. It's a bit hard to swallow.

[Ben]

It's a bit of terriology precursor. Maybe we should do that. Maybe we should make up our, you, me and everybody listening. Maybe we should make up our own personal philosophies.

[Noel]

Why not?

[Ben]

And name them after themselves.

[Noel]

Just call it, you know, a code that you live by yourself. We don't have to make other people do it.

[Ben]

Yeah, that's the thing that seems a little bit imperialistic about it. You know what I mean?

[Noel]

Right.

[Ben]

And also I believe that people should have self confidence, but it feels weird to name things like that after yourself, you know what I mean?

[Noel]

Oh, I do know what you mean. And I do want to end with one last quote from Lawson himself that sums this whole thing up.

[Ben]

Go for it.

[Noel]

To try to write a sketch of the life and works of Alfred W. Lawson in a few pages is like trying to restrict space itself.

[Ben]

Oh my God. We didn't even talk about how he writes in third person under assumed names.

[Noel]

Yeah, psy q fonts. All right, well, we're gonna. Maybe we'll have to revisit this one. I had a good time.

[Ben]

I did too. This also reminds me a little bit of time quite cube of a less angry version of time cube. You know what that is, right?

[Noel]

I do not.

[Ben]

Are you serious, man? Okay. Time cube. I know this. We're being such. One more thing is a guy who believes that the Earth encounters. You'll hear me turning my computer around to show this to Noel, who believes that the Earth encounters four simultaneous days and that it's moving through a cube of space and time. And his entire website is just this. I can post it. He made an appearance at Georgia Tech, one of our local learning centers, a while back, and I felt really bad. I think he's unwell. He has a very unique and distinct understanding of the nature of reality. And there are more and more people like this. Sometimes we call them eccentric, sometimes we call them visionaries. Don't know what the difference is. But we would like to hear from you. Thank you so much for checking out the show. Thanks to Casey Pegram, our super producer, and Noel, thanks to you.

[Noel]

You're welcome, Ben. Thanks also to Alex Williams, who composed our theme, and to our amazing researcher Yves Jeffcoats, who worked on this episode.

[Ben]

Be sure to join us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. You can see all sorts of shenaniganry there. And we cannot highly enough recommend our community page. Ridiculous Historians. If you want to read about Lodomi, then I've got you. I'll post up some PDFs on the page and I would love to hear what you think. If this somehow makes sense to someone, let us know because we were. We were adrift in some very high minded concepts today, but luckily we made it back to Earth. And that is the strange story of the inventor of the airline.

[Noel]

We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Alex Williams]

This podcast is supported by talkspace.

[Yves Jeffcoats]

When my husband came home from his military deployment, readjusting was hard for all of us. Thankfully, I found Talkspace.

[Alex Williams]

Talkspace provides professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatric providers online military members, veterans and their dependents ages 13 and older can get fast access to providers, all from the privacy of their computers or smartphones.

[Yves Jeffcoats]

I just answered a few questions online and Talkspace matched me with a therapist. We meet when it's convenient for me and I can message her anytime. It was so easy to set up and they accept. Tricare. Therapy was going so well, my husband and I started seeing a couple's therapist through Talkspace too.

[Alex Williams]

Talkspace works with most major insurers, including Tricare. Match with a licensed therapist [e-mail] military go to talkspace.com military to get started today. That's talkspace.com military.

[Holly Fry]

Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, Known as the wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s, her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the home hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Max Williams]

A crime makes headlines, people talk about it for a few days. Then it disappears.

[Noel]

But for the people left behind, their story is just beginning. But at night, we hear the garage opening and my son hears. We freak out. Honestly, I didn't tell my son this, but I thought that was it.

[Max Williams]

From the exactly Right network. This is the Knife. Real stories of crime's ripple effects told by those who lived them.

[Noel]

New episodes every Thursday.

[Max Williams]

Listen to the knife on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Emily Tish Sussman, host of the podcast. She Pivots. In honor of Mother's Day, we have some very special guests. Yes, I'm Elaine Welteroff.

[Noel]

And I'm Caitlin Murray.

[Max Williams]

Both women pivoted out of their careers after having their kids, proving that motherhood is just another chapter in our journey, not the end. Come on over to hear their full stories. You can listen to she pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noel]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.